


The sun is long overdue

by glim



Series: sleeping lessons [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bucky Barnes Feels, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, POV Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 14:57:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14673501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: Steve's been gone a week and the feverish warmth from seven days ago has become a cold knot of worry in the pit of Bucky's stomach.





	The sun is long overdue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [R00bs_Teacup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/gifts).



> A Bucky POV piece set during Sleeping Lessons. 
> 
> Title from "Hard Year" by Josh Joplin.

Bucky spends Sunday at Steve's apartment, grading papers and shivering with under the small, soft touches they trade. There's warmth and anticipation in each one of those touches, too, and Bucky keeps a tally of them all, remembers and memorizes the softness of Steve's fingertips against his jaw, the certainty in the kiss he presses to Bucky's forehead. 

He lets himself get lost in that hazy warmth of that Sunday afternoon and lets it spread, languid and feverish through his body. He lets himself get lost in the idea of having Steve to himself, of knowing that in less than two weeks, he'll be able to bury himself in the warmth of Steve's body and touch Steve's face, his lips and hands and his chest. 

God, he just wants to hold Steve _so bad_. Wants to feel the weight of Steve's body against his own, to bury his face in Steve's neck, to kiss him over and over and to feel his hands map out every inch of Steve's body before drawing Steve in even closer. 

By the time New York City is on day three of its December heat wave, Bucky feels as if he's walking around in a feverish haze of pre-Christmas, end of semester exhaustion. The out-of-season warmth has a wrongness that Bucky can start to feel seeping into his bones. 

He wakes up on Tuesday with an ache in his left arm that reaches up into his shoulder and neck, that makes him tense against the pain and feel as if the humid air weighs to heavy on his limbs. 

"I'm ready for it to be winter now," he says when he meets Steve outside the lecture hall, sweating even with his hair pulled up off his neck and his button-up sleeves rolled to his elbows. 

"I bet it'll be here soon enough. Then you'll complain about it being too cold?" Steve smiles at him as they stop in front of the History building. He's in jeans and a grey NYU tee shirt, his cute plastic frame glasses almost obscuring the shy look on his face when he catches Bucky watching him rifle a hand hand through his sweat-damp hair before putting his baseball cap back on. 

The gesture makes him look so _young_ that, for a moment, melancholy and the fever-warmth of the December morning hit Bucky oddly in the heart. He closes his eyes against the urge to lean in and brush a kiss against Steve's lips. 

"Only to you, punk. You want to grab coffee after class?" Bucky lets the back of his hand brush against Steve's, though, and smiles to feel Steve hook his finger around Bucky's. If he could only pull Steve in a little closer against his side, walk with his hip tucked into the curve of Steve's body. 

"Iced coffee, maybe. Yeah," Steve agrees, then murmurs, under his breath: "Ten days." 

Bucky can't help but smile. "Ten days, then you're all mine, Steven Grant." 

"Sure, Professor, all yours." Steve actually blushes when Bucky slants a smile up at him, and then glances away. 

Coffee this afternoon, and then ten more days in the semester--Bucky can do that.

*

As soon as he sees the alert flash across his phone screen, Bucky _knows_. The feverish warmth that had crowded his senses earlier that day flushes through him with a sense of panicked worry and he _knows_.

He still gives Steve the proud smile that Steve deserves and sees, for the first time that semester, Captain America standing in the middle of an NYU lecture hall. It had always just been Steve, shy and sweet and curious, who sat in that seat, and Steve, smiling and faintly blushing, when he met Bucky for coffee or who realized he'd dozed off, hurt and exhausted, tired out from a job that sometimes asked too much of him. 

But it's only now that Bucky really sees Steve in his role as Cap, and there's enough pride mixed with the worry the he can't help but watch Steve jog out of the lecture hall with a smile on his face.

*

The weather changes, turns bitter and winter-sharp, the sky a heavy, snow-threatening grey, and Bucky feels his heart catch when a complaint about the weather rises up on his lips.

Steve's been gone a week and the feverish warmth from seven days ago has become a cold knot of worry in the pit of Bucky's stomach. Between teaching his class and writing his dissertation, between holiday parties and departmental meetings, he tries to dissolve the cold inside him with his hands wrapped around endless cups of coffee and his mind dizzy with hours spent watching the news. 

All he wants is some sign, some small word to reassure him that Steve will come home, that he'll come back, and Bucky will see the shy smile light up his eyes as Bucky reaches up to brush Steve's hair off his forehead. 

Bucky anxiety-writes a draft for an article on oral histories and the home front during the Great War, barely sleeps Saturday into Sunday, and wakes from a fitful doze to pick up his phone on the first ring before he even knows who's calling. 

"Yeah? Hello?" 

"James? Are you awake or did I just wake you up?" 

Bucky sighs into the phone, at once relieved and disappointed. "Ma... aren't you on your way to Mass? How early is it?" 

"James," his mother says again, then gets quiet for a second. "Sweetheart, it's almost noon. Are you feeling okay? You sound--" 

"Ma, I'm fine. What's up?" Jesus. Bucky sounds awful and he knows it, and more than anything else, he wants to tell his mother how awful the past week's been, how worry has crowded his heart, how Steve is out there in the midst of some great emergency. 

"Are you sure?" Winifred asks, then sighs when Bucky does. "Your father wants you to come take a look at the cable box. And maybe you want to come over for Sunday lunch?" 

"Geez, Dad. Did he fiddle with it again? I told you not to let him do that..." Bucky scrubs a hand over his face, suddenly grateful for the normalcy of life with his parents--Sunday Mass, then Sunday lunch directly after, a ballgame on the television, his Ma and Dad pulling apart the paper on the sofa and planning the rest of the week. "Yeah... yeah, I'll come over, Ma. Let me grab a shower first." 

"You can come over whenever you want. We'll be home." Behind his mother's voice, Bucky can hear his Dad talking, asking where she wants him to put the things from the bakery. "On the table," Winifred says, and then, "James, if you're not feeling good--" 

"Ma, really, I'm okay. I miss you guys," Bucky says, and fuck, he _does_. He misses Steve and he misses his parents and he misses home. He's going to his parents' house and he's going to have lunch, and that's the best thing he can ask for right now.

*

"You look tired, James..." Winifred hands Bucky a dish to dry, then reaches up and touches the side of his face. "What kind of a week did you have? Or did you just decide sleep wasn't something you needed this week?"

Bucky shakes his head, then turns to rub his face in against his right shoulder. The left one aches again, and he's pretty sure he'll need one of his pain pills before bed tonight. Well, fuck, maybe the medicine will at least put him to sleep. 

"Work's been busy... Paper grading, and I had that conference paper..." He's warm and full, though, and even with the exhaustion his Ma's pot roast and mashed potatoes went a long way in filling up that cold, empty, worried space inside Bucky. 

His mother eyes him in the way that means she's knows he's not telling her everything, then reaches up and touches her palm to Bucky's cheek again. She watches him for a few more moments, then shakes her head and lets her hand slip down to rub his left shoulder, right where it always hurts after the accident. 

"Go fix the tv for your Dad, then put on whatever you want to watch. Go rest in the living room." 

Bucky's about to protest, but instead he finishes drying the dishes for his mother, then hugs her from behind just to bother her while she's trying wipe down the kitchen counters. 

"The tv, James, before your father tries to fix it himself," Winifred says, but her voice is as warm and fond as Bucky's memories of helping his Ma in the kitchen as a little boy.

*

Bucky resets the cable box for his parents' television, lets the tv set reprogram the channels, and then flicks through a few shows while his mother finishing cleaning up and his father goes for a walk around the neighborhood.

After flipping through the channels, he settles on ABC7, because he knows that's his Ma's favorite news channel. He'll change it once she actually picks a show to watch, but if he's just going to sit on the sofa and half doze off, half check his phone, it doesn't matter what he has on. 

The news headlines scroll across the screen and a special announcement flashes onto the tv and Bucky stops, stares, feels his chest go tight with worry. It's hardly even an update, most of the footage a few days old, but--

"James? Sweetheart, what's _wrong_?" 

Bucky stares at the television, eyes wide and worried, and then turns to his mother with silent helplessness. 

His Ma gives him a familiar look, soft worry and unspoken understanding, and sits down next to Bucky on the sofa. He's at least six inches taller than her now, but she slips an arm around him and pulls him closer, waits until he drops his head on her shoulder, and then hugs him even more tightly. 

"Mama," Bucky whispers, his voice hoarse and tear-choked, "Mama, that's my guy, that's Stevie..." 

They sit for five minutes in the living room, quiet and close, and then Winifred reaches for the remote from Bucky's right hand, changes the channel to a bland, Sunday afternoon movie, and sits with Bucky until he's ready to talk about the past week that Steve's been gone.


End file.
